Songoftheday 3/6/23 -I'm the kinda girl that hangs with the guys, like a fly on the wall with my secret eyes

 

 

"Hey Baby" - No Doubt featuring Bounty Killer

from the album Rock Steady (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 16

 

Today's song comes from the pop/rock band No Doubt, who were last seen in the top-40 in the summer of 2000 with "Simple Kind Of Life" from their fourth studio album The Return Of Saturn. However the lackluster showing compared to the massive success of its predecessor, Tragic Kingdom and its classic hit "Don't Speak", shook the group up quite a bit. Stefani took a couple side-gigs that ended up being way more popular, with a featured stint on club guru Moby's single "South Side" followed by doing the chorus on rapper Eve's "Let Me Blow Your Mind", which made it all the way to #2 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 and won a Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. 

The group traveled to Jamaica to record most of their next album, Rock Steady, which came out at the close of 2001. The lead single from the disc definitely showed the influence of dancehall and reggae on their music. "Hey Baby", written by Gwen Stefani, Tony Kanal and Tom Dumont from the band, featured DJ/toaster Rodney "Bounty Killer" Price. Bounty Killer, who grew up in Kingston to a musical family, started early in the business, released his first album, Roots, Reality, & Culture in 1994. He had a series of releases on the big reggae label VP Records as well as Greensleeves Records until he broke internationally with the record My Xperience in 1996, which was distributed in the States by the indie TVT Records (the ones behind the TV theme song compilations and Nine Inch Nails). The record spent a month on the Billboard 200 sales tally, with a high of #145, while getting to #27 on their R&B Albums list and spending 16 weeks at #1 on the Top Reggae Albums chart. A song from the set, "Hip-Hopera" featuring the Fugees (with whom he did a remix for their cover of "Killing Me Softly"), went to #54 on Billboard's R&B Songs chart, and #81 on the pop Hot 100 in 1997. A year later, he returned with another record, Next Millennium, which popped on to the R&B Albums list at #39 and topped the Reggae Albums chart for 6 weeks. It also spun off another minor hit with "Deadly Zone" with Mobb Deep and Rappin' Noyd, which hit #79 on the Hot 100 and #48 on the R&B Songs list, hit best showing as a lead artist. He also had a #2 Reggae Album in 1999 with 5th Element, so his appearance on the record was certainly meant to give "street cred" to their Caucasian foray into the genre. 

However the song itself is nothing but a silly bouncy facsimile of dancehall, with lyrics about partying and having the sex. It comes across to me like the equivalent of the women who get their hair braided on cruise ship destinations. Bounty Killer steps in and just struts for a little to no effect. the only memorable line is about "When you rock your hips you know that it amaze me", which ended up creating controversy, for its placement in the music video right when drummer Adrian Young hangs from gymnastics rings naked, forcing Bounty Killer to disavow the track because of insinuations on his sexuality (Jamaica is notoriously bigoted and stupid about homosexuality) even though that had nothing to do with it in the song. It all smacked up marketing and big-budget promotion. Nevertheless the vibe and Gwen's star appeal was in full force in America, and the single heralded their comeback on the radio and on the charts...

"Hey Baby" rose to the top five on Billboard's Hot 100 in March of 2002. On the radio, the song became their first hit after "Don't Speak" to top the Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart, while getting to #10 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 list and #5 on the dance-oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in the United Kingdom (#2), New Zealand (#2), Romania (#2), Norway (#3), Croatia (#5), Australia (#7), Denmark (#7), Germany (#8), Finland (#9), and Greece (#10). It also hit the top-40 in Italy (#11), Switzerland (#11), Austria (#12), the Netherlands (#14), Ireland (#15), Sweden (#17), and Belgium (#19 Flanders/#31 Wallonia). The Rock Steady album, released in December of 2001, peaked at #9 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over two million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2003, "Hey Baby" won the award for Best Duo/Group Pop Vocal Performance. Rock Steady was also nominated for Best Pop Album, losing to Norah Jones for her jazz-pop excursion Come Away With Me.

No Doubt and this album will be back to the series.

As for Bounty Killer, he released two companion albums in June of 2002 under the title Ghetto Dictionary, The Art Of War and The Mystery, with both making the top ten on Billboard's Reggae Albums chart. In 2005, his non-album single "P.S.A. B.K. 2004" with rapper Jay-Z which went to #75 on the R&B Singles chart. But his getting caught in the backlash protesting his anti-gay stance stifled his career from growing any further. His 2006 album Nah No Mercy was his most recent charting set on the Reggae Albums chart, spending only two weeks with a high of #15. He's also had trouble with the law involving DUIs and domestic violence. He's released material under various configurations to little notice.

(3/10)

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Here's the band performing the song at the Billboard Music Awards in 2001...

Next up at the T In The Park festival in London the following year...

and finally at a show in Germany for MTV in 2012..

Up tomorrow: This Atlanta rapper is on the move.